


Scar

by Dr_TJ_Eckleburg



Category: Bride of Re-Animator (1989), Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5704387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_TJ_Eckleburg/pseuds/Dr_TJ_Eckleburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suspecting the worst from his dear friend, Dan decides to find out exactly what happened when Herbert operated on him in Peru.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar

Dan often stopped to examine it in the mirror, to run his finger along the thin, white line that traversed his lower belly. He recalled the attack only as one might recall a bad dream: in horrifying pieces. There was pain, smoke and haze, darkness… and then suddenly he had a careful line of sutures and a puzzle he couldn’t completely solve. Yes, he’d been stabbed, and later he woke up to face a long and troublesome recovery. What exactly happened in between— when Herbert West had his wonderful, horrible hands inside him—was an all-too-closely guarded secret.

He might have allowed Dan vague comments and aggravating, oversimplified details of the surgery, but nothing more. It was enough to keep Dan’s suspicions piqued, for from the very moment he woke in that dank clinic in Peru he suspected his partner of resorting to questionable methods.

Herbert tended to study the scar himself in their more _intimate_ moments, if so tender a word could be applied. He would run a delicate finger along that pale ridge with a small, inexorably proud smile. It was a rare occasion one night that Herbert would linger in Dan’s bed a little longer than was entirely necessary and trace its length.

“Admiring your work, Doctor?” Dan questioned, admittedly a touch spent after the evening’s activities. It came out sounding a little more peeved than he intended.

Herbert only hummed, lips pursed and brows knitted. Dan had always disliked arrogance as a character trait until he became tied up in Herbert West. Now, he alternated between loathing it and reluctantly basking in the warm arousal it provoked.

“Not that you could be bothered to talk about that surgery, anyway…”

Herbert grinned, though it wasn’t pleasant. “So bitter. Did I not satisfy you?”

Of course, he did. As unfortunate as it was, in the confines of their private quarters, Dan ravenously devoured every second of their time together like some desperate addict. Herbert’s arrogance might have been frequently irksome among beakers, test tubes and dead tissue, but it had the power to fell Dan entirely in bed. He cleared his throat. “No, you did. But this is all about keeping me interested, isn’t it?”

“You haven’t left yet, have you?” He might have smugly glanced over his glasses if he were wearing them. For the time being the illustrious Dr. West was entirely unadorned from head to foot. “You understand the importance of our work, at any rate. You wouldn’t leave.” He reached to brush his thumb against Dan’s cheek, his touch regrettably electric.

“Can you do me a favor, Herbert?”

“Anything, Daniel.”

_Anything?_ Dan knew that wasn’t true, but it sounded nice rolling off his oft wicked tongue. “Tell me. What exactly happened when I was wounded in Peru?”

Herbert tisked. “You don’t trust me.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

He gave a heavy, dramatic sigh and replaced his glasses. “You want to know whether or not you died, correct?” Dan opened his mouth to speak but was promptly cut off with, “Do you really think if I had reanimated a human specimen as… _perfectly_ as you would’ve had to have been reanimated to maintain your current physical state and mentality that I would not have shared this information with you? Why would we still be in the lab spinning our wheels, as it were, if I had achieved such success?”

Dan shrugged but his response, lacking substance, pushed Herbert from the bed. It was oddly warmer without him. “I don’t know, Herbert. You can’t replicate the conditions, I was the freshest corpse you’d ever had—anything! I just… something doesn’t feel right about the whole thing.”

Sharp hazel eyes pierced Dan’s. “You didn’t die.”

“And you’re not always known for your honesty, Dr. West.”

Herbert pulled on his underwear. “If I successfully put you back together again, Dan, do the details really matter?”

“Yes!”

He rolled his eyes as he reached for his shirt, the crisp white cotton quickly concealing a body that looked all the healthier for kicking the reagent addiction. “You were stabbed.”

“So I was.”

“I took you to a… I hesitate to call it a clinic. It was little more than a hut.” He paused as he tucked his shirt into his trousers. Dan was still entirely unmoved to dress himself; a thin sheet carefully placed with modesty in mind was the only stitch against his skin. He was only then aware of his own fingers tracing the scar in question. “As I told you when you awoke that evening, I simply removed a damaged portion of your bowel. I fixed you,” Herbert answered delicately. “However unpleasant, you made a full recovery. But surely you remember the details of that. I don’t need to explain.”

“Don’t condescend to me.”

“Never, Dan.” He sat on the side of the bed in order to replace his shoes. It was suddenly very easy to see him inside Dan in some dimly-lit shanty—putting him back together, as he so eloquently put it. To be the subject of any of Herbert’s work was almost as gratifying as it was frightening. Dan tried and failed to justify the vague arousal he felt at such a dream. Some flicker of pride toyed with Herbert’s lips, as though he could read his partner’s thoughts. “Just know that I saved you.” 

It wasn’t enough this time—not even for Herbert, as he slipped the black noose of his tie around his neck again and stood beside the bed. He was entirely dressed, immaculate, and Dan still sat on the mattress naked. He felt like his subordinate, his _experiment_ , and it wasn’t lost on Dr. West, either. Dan could see that in the brief, conservative flitting of his eyes over his naked body. Not just pride, but some sense of ownership that Dan couldn’t entirely negate. Whatever the reason, this time, he couldn’t help himself.

Herbert continued, “You didn’t die. But you were dying.” 

“... All right.”

“Fading. I needed to keep you with me, and the supplies provided to me proved rather limited.” He shrugged with infuriating, faux nonchalance. “I had to make do with what I had.”

Dan suspected something entirely unnatural all along, but still he felt nausea twist in his gut. He had been violated. “You shot me up. You used the reagent on me.”

“It provided the necessary jolt to your system, didn’t it? I know all about the way it shoots through the body. Trust me; I wasn’t entirely certain it would work. It could have caused irreparable damage, but I didn’t have much choice. I wasn’t properly equipped.”

“Ah, so I was an impromptu experiment. Wonderful!”

Again, Dan wasn’t entirely sure if he meant to sound as bitter as he did. What did it say about him that he helped Herbert pump that slime into the veins of others, but the moment it was used on him, he recoiled? He was a trifle more disgusted with himself than he was with Herbert, which admittedly was a feat. 

Herbert sneered. “Daniel, I saved your life. The customary response is _thank you_.”

“Why couldn’t you just let me go? Maybe I was supposed to die.”

He barked in laughter, and it was odd to look up at him, standing over Dan like some kind of cruel deity. “I don’t believe for a moment that you subscribe to that tripe. I was not interrupting any greater plan, and even if I were, wouldn’t the interruption of that divine plan be the very reason for our work?” He paused to adjust his glasses. “And besides… it would’ve been… _inconvenient_ to lose you.”

“Inconvenient?”

Herbert sat carefully on the side of the bed. “Deeply regrettable,” he said softly.

To add some more sincere brand of desperation to the fever dream of the operation was to pepper Dan’s anger with guilt. Would he have resorted to so questionable a method if their roles had been reversed? However twisted Herbert’s methods and motives, Dan couldn’t deny that he would go as far as necessary to rescue the only person in the world to whom he could turn. That dire need to have some confidant was too strong. Even if one regrettably lost the other, surely the weight of the crimes they had committed in their time together would weigh too heavily upon the remaining soul for true freedom to ever be a possibility. Then again, he knew he could speak only for himself.

And despite the poor results, he had used their detestable reagent on Meg. It was impossible to accept that Herbert West felt anything for him that was even an iota as tender as what Dan had felt for her. All the same...

Dan cleared his throat. “I hate you,” he said but he didn’t mean it even in the slightest.

“Hmm. And yet, you stay,” Herbert said bluntly as he got to his feet again. He would retreat to the basement now, expecting Dan to join him presently.

Dan wasn’t entirely sure what made him rise to forcefully kiss his partner. Perhaps it was a dire attempt to disturb that placid surface Herbert tended to wear so well. Perhaps it was the _thank you_ he asked for—unlikely. He still resented him for it, but at once he understood. It wasn’t tenderness which drove Herbert, but pride and selfishness, the very same selfishness that made Dan bring Meg back from the dead. There was nothing to do now but embrace the twisted nightmare they shared.

The rough fabric of Herbert’s clothing brushed against his bare skin, and he felt again like one of his experiments, some clay to be molded in his hands. Herbert kissed back just as firmly, though void of anything resembling romantic passion. Dan knew that every action Herbert took in their demented path toward intimacy had more practical motives.

“That’s not a customary display of hatred, Daniel,” he said once they parted.

Dan looked to his feet. “Go on to the basement. I’ll be down soon.”

He graced him with that infuriatingly proud smile before leaving.

And so, Dan would dress himself and join his partner in the basement where dismembered bodies and desecrated souls waited. And never before had he identified with them so strongly, so purely, for now he was their brother.

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, thank you to Backwards-Blackbird on Tumblr for editing this!


End file.
